The Collector | Artist paints burning bright seascapes from Hong Kong eyrie
Richard Winkworth explores his fascination with Hong Kong’s maritime life from his home in Ap Lei Chau, capturing the ever-changing interplay of light and water, ships and land - work featured in an exhibition,The Sea
Long ago, Hong Kong’s harbour and islands became popular settings for painters and photographers, the ships, sea, godowns, mercantile establishments and people being of special interest.
Hong Kong’s best post-war modern artist, Luis Chan, was himself inspired by the port city’s seascapes and made a series of ink paintings that included a changing array of fantastical local characters merged into a phantasmagorical landscape of seashores, islands, fish, rocks and distant, ever-present hills.
Briton Richard Winkworth has joined this artistic continuum. In 2007, the artist moved into a high-rise industrial studio in Ap Lei Chau with a stunning view of the East Lamma Channel, Lamma Island and beyond. A constantly changing vista of light, shadows and weather acts as backdrop to the activity on the water: huge container ships, smaller kai-to and fishing boats make their way through this narrow sea channel. From his eyrie, Winkworth has beautifully captured the changing moods and scenery of the sea below.
The painter’s own connection to Asia’s seas dates from his birth, in Mumbai, then Bombay. The son of an officer of the British-India Steam Navigation Company, as a young boy in the 1960s, Winkworth often crisscrossed Southeast Asia by boat, until his relocation to Britain for schooling. He went on to study fine arts at the University of Brighton and the Chelsea School of Art, in London. In the 90s, he often visited Hong Kong to exhibit and eventually settled here.
